Sunday morning reviews
Aug. 14th, 2005 10:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annwfynSo, how has my weekend been?
Very lazy so far. I've dyed my hair, been to the cinema, and read a vast amount. I think I spent an hour on the phone to my li'l sis discussing beds and houses, and I've pondered life in a fairly contented manner. Despite occasional rants, life seems to be settling. I'm building the life I want - the world I want to live in. Kittens are looking more and more feasible. It's looking like we may well get a part furnished house in November, so I can begin to build up furniture for when I can buy a house (I'm working on a five year plan at the moment) and the world is full of goodness. Oh - beds I'm looking at (as I can't have the one I found in Aldershot) are pictured here
Yesterdaypierot, rweishaar and I went to see The Island - the new Ewan McGregor film. Ryan - my ex-military friend - informs me that this film may not portray US Delta Force troops in an entirely accurate manner. However, despite this, I enjoyed it.
The Island
The basic premise of 'The Island' is that Ewan McGregor and friends are living in a large complex which claims to be a shelter for everyone who survived 'contamination' which apparently wiped out all of human civilisation and left a barren and desolate world outside, except for one island where nature has survived. These survivors sit around in some rather nifty white track suits, keep fit, and wait for their number to come up in the lottery that determines who goes to the island.
Only there isn't an island! It's all a lie! Ewan and friends are actually clones - people who are being kept in a bunker, in storage for the day their original really needs that kidney, or needs the womb of a woman to produce the child they can't have. At the end of their usefulness, the original clone is disposed of.
It's not a bad premise, and the first half of the movie, which shows Ewan finding out the truth is done really rather well. Sean Bean is also really impressively creepy as the doctor who runs the facility. The scene in which he stumbles into the hospital wing and witnesses the truth of the situation for himself is genuinely chilling - as much for the receptionist gossiping at the end about how much she likes a football player, while his clone is butchered in the room behind her as for anything else. The mundane, cheerful, human face of bloody minded evil is wonderfully done.
Of course, Ewan realises what is going on, grabs the rather hot Scarlett Johannsenn and breaks out of the cloning facilty and goes on the run. Go Ewan! Sean Bean realises what is up, and sends an elite Delta Force mercenary squad after them to bring them back. From then on in, I think we all know what is going to happen. Fortunately for Ewan, Sean Bean apparently only managed to find mercenaries who had recently suffered head trauma and had all been rendered slightly retarded. These mercenaries do things like stick their hand through doors to fumble around and try and open the door, or try and stop the fugitives by crashing large articulated lorries into them. This makes the film a lot longer, with a great deal of chasing and collateral damage. On the other hand, it also brought in Djimon Hounsou as a rather cool brooding African mercenary with some kind of mercenary code of honour, who may have been stupid, but looked damn good while being stupid.
The film finally came to a crashing end with Sean Bean going crazy, and Michael Bay realising that he doesn't have a clue how to end it, but he saw this film called 'Logan's Run' once.
So, OK, not perfect, but some really rather good scenes and a cracking good premise. I'd go and see it again. Admittedly, this might be due to Djimon Hounsou who I do have a big fondness for. Oh, and I am aware that this sounds horrific on some levels, but I am noticing that Djimon only ever seems to have one part, and that part is awful close to what could be described as 'noble savage'. Am I being deeply racially insensitive there?
Next up, my review of my current reading materiel. It's the first non-Sharpe Bernard Cornwall I've ever read, and it's an Arthurian novel. A bit of a high risk enterprise for me, you might think. But currently I'm rather enjoying it.
The Winter King, by Bernard Cornwall
OK, OK, so I might not agree with all Cornwall's theories. OK, so he's anachronistic in places (he explains why rather well in the author's afternote) and OK, I do keep wanting bloody Nimue to just be burnt at the stake, along with all the other Strong Pagan Priestess Heroines (tm) that are such a staple of books about any time period before the 8th century. Oh, and it does appear that Bernard Cornwall believes in reincarnation! He might not say so, but we all know that this is a story about one of Sharpe's past lives. Oh, and one of Harper's past lives as well. Hey! If a formula works, just stick to it.
On the other hand, I have rather enjoyed it so far. It's got a nice feel to it - especially the depiction of Britain as a patchwork of kingdoms and tribes, warring with each other while trying to band together to deal with the saxons. The relationship between the early Christian church and the pagans was also kinda cool - the split between city and country was really nicely done. And, whatever else, Cornwall does spin a damn fine yarn!
This series is definitely growing on me.
Very lazy so far. I've dyed my hair, been to the cinema, and read a vast amount. I think I spent an hour on the phone to my li'l sis discussing beds and houses, and I've pondered life in a fairly contented manner. Despite occasional rants, life seems to be settling. I'm building the life I want - the world I want to live in. Kittens are looking more and more feasible. It's looking like we may well get a part furnished house in November, so I can begin to build up furniture for when I can buy a house (I'm working on a five year plan at the moment) and the world is full of goodness. Oh - beds I'm looking at (as I can't have the one I found in Aldershot) are pictured here
Yesterday
pierot, rweishaar and I went to see The Island - the new Ewan McGregor film. Ryan - my ex-military friend - informs me that this film may not portray US Delta Force troops in an entirely accurate manner. However, despite this, I enjoyed it.The Island
The basic premise of 'The Island' is that Ewan McGregor and friends are living in a large complex which claims to be a shelter for everyone who survived 'contamination' which apparently wiped out all of human civilisation and left a barren and desolate world outside, except for one island where nature has survived. These survivors sit around in some rather nifty white track suits, keep fit, and wait for their number to come up in the lottery that determines who goes to the island.
Only there isn't an island! It's all a lie! Ewan and friends are actually clones - people who are being kept in a bunker, in storage for the day their original really needs that kidney, or needs the womb of a woman to produce the child they can't have. At the end of their usefulness, the original clone is disposed of.
It's not a bad premise, and the first half of the movie, which shows Ewan finding out the truth is done really rather well. Sean Bean is also really impressively creepy as the doctor who runs the facility. The scene in which he stumbles into the hospital wing and witnesses the truth of the situation for himself is genuinely chilling - as much for the receptionist gossiping at the end about how much she likes a football player, while his clone is butchered in the room behind her as for anything else. The mundane, cheerful, human face of bloody minded evil is wonderfully done.
Of course, Ewan realises what is going on, grabs the rather hot Scarlett Johannsenn and breaks out of the cloning facilty and goes on the run. Go Ewan! Sean Bean realises what is up, and sends an elite Delta Force mercenary squad after them to bring them back. From then on in, I think we all know what is going to happen. Fortunately for Ewan, Sean Bean apparently only managed to find mercenaries who had recently suffered head trauma and had all been rendered slightly retarded. These mercenaries do things like stick their hand through doors to fumble around and try and open the door, or try and stop the fugitives by crashing large articulated lorries into them. This makes the film a lot longer, with a great deal of chasing and collateral damage. On the other hand, it also brought in Djimon Hounsou as a rather cool brooding African mercenary with some kind of mercenary code of honour, who may have been stupid, but looked damn good while being stupid.
The film finally came to a crashing end with Sean Bean going crazy, and Michael Bay realising that he doesn't have a clue how to end it, but he saw this film called 'Logan's Run' once.
So, OK, not perfect, but some really rather good scenes and a cracking good premise. I'd go and see it again. Admittedly, this might be due to Djimon Hounsou who I do have a big fondness for. Oh, and I am aware that this sounds horrific on some levels, but I am noticing that Djimon only ever seems to have one part, and that part is awful close to what could be described as 'noble savage'. Am I being deeply racially insensitive there?
Next up, my review of my current reading materiel. It's the first non-Sharpe Bernard Cornwall I've ever read, and it's an Arthurian novel. A bit of a high risk enterprise for me, you might think. But currently I'm rather enjoying it.
The Winter King, by Bernard Cornwall
OK, OK, so I might not agree with all Cornwall's theories. OK, so he's anachronistic in places (he explains why rather well in the author's afternote) and OK, I do keep wanting bloody Nimue to just be burnt at the stake, along with all the other Strong Pagan Priestess Heroines (tm) that are such a staple of books about any time period before the 8th century. Oh, and it does appear that Bernard Cornwall believes in reincarnation! He might not say so, but we all know that this is a story about one of Sharpe's past lives. Oh, and one of Harper's past lives as well. Hey! If a formula works, just stick to it.
On the other hand, I have rather enjoyed it so far. It's got a nice feel to it - especially the depiction of Britain as a patchwork of kingdoms and tribes, warring with each other while trying to band together to deal with the saxons. The relationship between the early Christian church and the pagans was also kinda cool - the split between city and country was really nicely done. And, whatever else, Cornwall does spin a damn fine yarn!
This series is definitely growing on me.
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-14 10:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-14 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-14 03:28 pm (UTC)Never taken with his Numue character .."Strong Pagan Priestess".. yadda yadda. In fact (IMHO) it might have been much better if in response to her repeated blathering along the lines of "I hold your soul in my hands" some nameless sword wielder just muttered "And I shove my sword into your guts and twist it a half dozen times" and then done just that.{grin}.
As always his battle scenes are well scripted (in fact better that some of his Sharpe novels in fact ... maybe limited numbers are easier to handle) but, to be honest, I enjoyed the trilogy (in spite) of most of the Lancelot / Guinevere stuff rather than because of it. The relationship between the "hero" and the woman he loves is a lot more grounded in the real world. But then again I'm always more interested in the "little people" than the "lords & ladies" {grin}.
Not a bad set of novels (definitely a million times better than his American Civil War "Copperhead" series .... which features an utterly unlikeable little "bullet proof" burke (think of Clive Cussler's "Dirk Pitt" with a lot fewer submarines but just as irritating a prat of a character))
He's also done a novel entitled "Stonehenge" but it was (IMHO) a very disjointed plotline and seemed to just repeat itself in parts. Bit of a pot boiler.
The Rabbit (part time {unpaid} literary critic){grin}
no subject
Date: 2005-08-14 08:53 pm (UTC)If you want to borrow any of the later volumes, just ask. Ours are well thumbed as Ashley once did a LARP cycle based on them (and other books for good measure). I don't think we had any PC strong female pagan priestessy types, though I did get to NPC a Goddess. And deathstrike someone. Only to see her re-lifed before my eyes as a PC cast his one and only miracle to resurrect her. She was thereafter known by the 'Celtic party' (for want of a better name for the faction) as the 'undead princess'. When she wasn't being called 'the bearded princess' which was totally OOC as one of the chaps turned up a bit late to get a male character and she was the only one left. I think she ended up head of the Celtic and Catholic Churches of Albion. He had a very nice dress made for him and pushed a cushion up under it when his character was in the heir-production stage.
It was a LARP. One does not expect these to make historical sense.
I am an obsessive reader of Authuriads, both good and bad, and as they go, his is not a bad one.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-18 03:58 pm (UTC)Just been given it / can't really get into it / so if you ain't seen it before ?